IT’S NOT THINK POSITIVE. IT’S FEEL POSITIVE.
There is a particular kind of misery available only to people who are already feeling terrible and then decide they’re also doing feeling terrible incorrectly.
You’re upset.
Then you remember you’re supposed to think positive.
Fantastic.
Now you’re upset and failing at personal development.
So you try harder.
Everything is wonderful.
Your body: No.
This is all happening for my highest good.
Body: Absolutely not.
I am abundant, powerful and completely at peace.
Body: Have you met us?
This is the problem I have with “think positive”.
A thought can sound magnificent and still make you feel worse.
Because sometimes all it does is make the gap more obvious.
Here is where I actually am.
And waaaaaay over there is the thing I’m trying to make myself believe.
It’s like climbing a ladder.
You’re standing safely on one rung and somebody tells you the positive rung is six steps higher.
So you stretch.
One foot leaves the rung.
You grab for the top.
The whole thing wobbles.
Your body goes rigid.
And someone underneath shouts:
JUST BELIEVE!
No thank you.
Your body knows the rung isn’t stable.
The thought doesn’t feel real.
You can’t relax into it.
And I think that’s the part we miss.
A better thought doesn’t have to be spectacular.
It needs to be somewhere you can actually stand.
Maybe:
Everything is going to be amazing!
feels ridiculous.
But:
I don’t know what’s going to happen yet.
That might feel true.
Or:
I have handled difficult things before.
Oh.
Okay.
Foot down.
Solid rung.
Maybe:
There’s a possibility this could work out differently than I expect.
Another rung.
And when something actually feels believable, the body changes.
There’s less bracing.
Less argument.
Less of the internal call of: Bullshit.
You can relax.
That’s the difference.
I’m not particularly interested in whether a thought passes the Positive Thinking Entrance Exam.
I’m interested in what happens when you think it.
Does it give you more ease?
More space?
More possibility?
More peace?
Does your body believe you enough to stop fighting you?
Then you’re getting somewhere.
The goal isn’t to force yourself higher.
It’s to find the next place that feels stable enough to stand on.
Which is why, for me:
It’s not think positive.
It’s feel positive.
And once that starts to make sense, an even stranger idea appears:
maybe feeling good isn’t merely the reward we get after everything goes right.
Maybe feeling good is where we begin.
Related idea: You Have to Feel Good to Feel Good.